Dark Figure watched the proceedings
through the Syndicate Spy-Cam software installed on the Golden Laptop.
He looked at the pair of furry rodents sitting in JP's hand.
"Hahahahahaha!" Dark Figure laughed. "With two of their valued comrades turned into chipmunks, the Authors are crippled!"
He turned to Raltise with a grin. "Good thinking," they both said to
one another simultaneously. There followed an awkward pause.
"I thought you did it," they both said again. Another uncomfortable
silence followed, in which both villains studied the screen before them
with increasing interest. The chipmunks appeared agitated.
"If neither of us did it," Raltise pondered after a while, "then who or what did?"
Dark Figure frowned thoughtfully. "Perhaps that is one of the ineffable
mysteries of the Secret Box," he said. "After all, no one really
comprehends its true nature."
"Well, either way," continued Raltise with a malicious grin, sliding
the Golden Laptop over to his place at the Table of Evil, "we would be
remiss in our duties as villains if we did not stir up a little ruckus
now and then." He tapped a few dozen keys and turned the laptop around
so Dark Figure could watch.
*********
"Hmmm..." Mr. Accident scratched his chin. "This is interesting. I've
never heard of anything like this happening with the Secret Box before."
FZ poked one of the chipmunks. "Hee hee!" he giggled, poking it again. It bit him.
"Yowch!" he hopped around a bit, with his finger in his mouth.
Mr. Accident turned the Secret Box around in his hands, frowning intently at it.
"Maybe if we were to put them back in the box..." he began. Both
chipmunks signaled a strong disagreement with this idea by biting him
in the ankle.
"Well, perhaps we can take them to Dr. Andonuts," suggested Skulryk.
"He's always inventing things, and if my Author's Intuition serves me
right, there's a strong chance that he will at this very moment be
working on some invention directly addressing our current needs."
This is just great, thought Simon. Now I know how Silver Tyrano felt when he was stuck being a mouse. At least these walnuts are good. He munched at a large walnut that had fallen on his head from the ceiling.
Wait a second, he looked at the half-eaten walnut suspiciously.
Falcon the chipmunk was looking up at the ceiling with interest when
another walnut hit him in the face.
"Hey, where'd that walnut come from?" asked JP, rubbing his head.
The rest of the gang looked up, and the ceiling spontaneously
collapsed, sending ten million walnuts pouring into the small hotel
room.
Raltise and Dark Figure fell to the floor, laughing and giving each
other manly slaps on the back while they wiped tears of humorous
elation from their eyes. The image of the entire gang swimming in a sea
of walnuts was a stroke of pure genius, and they were relishing the
moment.
Meanwhile, inside the hotel room, the GIFE II gang was having a hard
time keeping aloft. Human beings tend to be denser than walnuts, and
this was proving especially unfortunate for everyone. Those who were
close to Silver Tyrano clung to him to keep from sinking, for the sea
of walnuts merely reached to his knees, while others tried
doggy-paddling. The only ones enjoying the unusual catastrophe were
Chipmunk Simon and Chipmunk Falcon, who were stuffing themselves silly.
"We have to do something!" Giampy's voice could barely be heard from under the walnuts. "I can't breathe!"
Mr. A, who was hanging on to Silver for dear life, patted the dinosaur
frantically. "Can't you swallow all these walnuts up or something?!"
"I don't like walnuts," retorted Silver. "You eat them."
Suddenly JP, who was doing the backstroke through the sea of walnuts,
bumped into Skulryk accidentally. The impact caused the Secret Box to
crack open, and soon the entire room had been swallowed up. The gang
fell to the floor abruptly, somewhat relieve. The two chipmunks, upset
that their meal had been stolen, bit Skulryk in the ankle.
"Well that was stupid," mused JP as he got up and dusted himself off. "But it was convenient. What now?"
"Well, now it would seem that we've stored the Sea of Walnuts in the secret box," replied Mr. A. "Maybe sometime in the future someone might want to use it as a plot device, should the need arise."
"We really need to stop Dark Figure and Raltise from messing with us like this," said Giampi.
FZ picked some lint from his clothes. "No kidding. I guess you have a plan, though, right?"
Giampi lowered his gaze. "Well..."
Liar frowned. "Well...what?"
Giampi scratched his head. "Actually, one of us will have a plan. Sometime within the next post, actually. Thing is, since no one's written it yet I can't really tell what it is."
"So we're in trouble then," said Giampy.
"At least until someone else posts."
"So what you're saying," said JP, "is that someone's going to come up with a brilliant plan, just not yet."
Giampi nodded. "Precisely."
"So what do we do then? We can't just stay here," said FZ. Liar nodded.
"We might as well head to Dr. Andonuts' Lab in the meantime. If
Giampi's theory is true, then we'll come up with a plan sometime in the
near future."
The group nodded, then headed for Dr. Andonuts' lab, somewhat skeptical but optimistic nonetheless.
It was an amazingly uneventful trip to Dr. Andounts new lab which was
in the cave leading to the Rainy Circle since his other lab had been
destroyed when Dalaam fell on it. He showed the authors his new
invention which made hot chocolate and butter cake although he had a
can of cashews for Simon and Falc. The group sat there eating cake,
drinking chocolate and wondering how they could stop Dark Figure and
Raltise from spying on them.
"So where's this brilliant plan that you predicted?" Skulryk asked looking at Giampi.
"It's coming. Don't you worry." Giampi said calmly.
"I know. We can drop a bomb on them!" FZ remarked.
"Don't have any on us." JP replied.
"EMP?"
"Left all the nukes at home."
"Awww."
"We're out of ideas already?" Liar said in amazement.
"Apparently." Giampi said.
"Where's a couple of wiseguys when you need em?" MrAccident said jokingly.
"Wiseguys, eh?" JP wondered.
"You got an idea? Because we sure need one." Skulryk said longingly.
"I believe I do."
JP stood up and grabbed Skulryk by the collar of his shirt and started
to drag him. Everybody followed as they watched JP dunk Skulryk in the
Rainy Circle.
"What are you doing?" Liar shrieked.
"Just wait." JP said calmly.
Skulryk flailed his arms wildly trying to escape JP's grasp, but soon
he went limp. Everybody gasped in fear, but JP pulled him out, flipped
him over and started to do CPR. At first Skul didn't respond, but then
he spat up water and started breathing again. He looked at JP for a
second before giving him a right hook in the face.
"Are you alright?" FZ asked.
"... I got an idea." Skulryk said slyly.
-------------------------------------------
Raltise and Dark Figure hovered over the laptop trying to figure out why it was running slowly.
"Have you done a spyware check recently?" Raltise asked.
"Wha?" Dark Figure wondered.
"Spyware... Gimme that."
"No! I'll figure it out on my own."
"Oh come on. Have you been even running the virus scan on this thing?"
Suddenly the doorbell rang. Raltise and Dark Figure looked at each
other weirdly before Raltise answered the door. Standing there was a
Escargo Express man holding a large, brown box.
"Good day, sir? Would you happen to be either Dark Figure or Raltise?" The delivery man asked.
"I am Raltise." Raltise responded.
"Gotta a package here for you. C.O.D."
"C.O.D?"
"Cash On Delivery."
"Cash On Delivery? How much?"
"Five hundred dollars."
"Five hundred dollars? Who's it from?"
"The label says it's from Microsoft Corp."
"Microsoft? Oh fine..."
Raltise reached into his pocket and pulled out a huge wad of cash and
handed it to the EE man. He dropped the box on the floor and ripped it
open.
"What is it?" Dark Figure asked.
"Hmm. Windows XP CC Edition." Raltise replied.
"Ooo. A new edition of Windows. Let's install it!"
"Windows XP CC is the latest wonder in the Windows family. It kills all
spyware before it's even developed and will cure all viruses, even
ebola. So easy to use even Dark Figure can't screw it up." Raltise read
off the back of the box.
"You hear that? Let's install it already."
"Oh, all right."
Raltise opened the and took out the CD case. He handed it to Dark
Figure who ripped it open and slammed the CD in the slot. He
enthusiastically began the installation process then ordered lunch for
Raltise and himself while they waited for the install to complete. An
hour later everything was ready to go. Dark Figure began to log on when
he got the Blue Screen of Death.
"What'd you do?" Raltise asked impatiently.
"I didn't do anything. I just tried to log on and it did that." Dark Figure said.
"Lemme at that."
Dark Figure got out of his sit and let Raltise play with the laptop.
However no matter what he tried the computer kept crashing. They tried
to reformat the laptop, but all they had was the XP CC disk and that
didn't help any. What they didn't notice was that in small words on the
bottom of the Windows box was "Windows XP Constantly Crashing Edition".